


Failure is the Only Option

by Welfycat



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Community: angst_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some cases they arrived on the scene having already lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Failure is the Only Option

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Angst Bingo; Prompt: Child Abuse  
> Content Notes: Sexual abuse/child pornography of an OC minor. Potentially triggering scene, please use caution.

Little, so little. Small enough to be picked up, and held, and sat in a lap. She was almost doll like, her face blank and her body limp. He almost wondered if she'd been drugged; maybe it was better if she had been. Maybe she wasn't aware of what was happening around her.

Dave Rossi kept his body language relaxed as possible despite the way he was pressing his hands into his thighs and felt like he was about to crack a tooth from clenching his jaw so tight. He'd swear this was the last time he agreed to go undercover, especially for the crimes against children unit of the FBI, but he knew that their entire team would be there as soon as they were asked. It was sickening work, and if he had his gun on him it would be an entirely different situation in the room at that moment, but he didn't and he just had to stay put and wait for the rest of his team and the SWAT team to find the location. He wouldn't be terribly sad if a bunch of the men sitting in the room were 'accidentally' taken down if they resisted arrest.

"Any time now," he whispered, knowing that the mic would pick it up as well as just about everything in his immediate vicinity. There were only about a dozen men in the room; a private showing with a broadcast that would be going out over the internet. There was a team working on locating the members that had been invited to the chat room but not to the live event. Dave had been a little suspicious at first. He'd only been undercover for two weeks and even with his 'credentials' and some recommendations from other agents that were on longer term cases, the most he'd hoped for was a chat room invitation to watch the feed. They'd nearly made the call to keep him from the event but they knew that if they lost the show runner and the child the FBI office had been tracking for nearly two years there was a good chance they wouldn't have the opportunity again for years.

"Just hang tight, we're on our way," a voice that he was able to identify as Aaron said, the smaller earpiece Dave wore distorting Aaron's voice slightly.

"Easier said than done," Dave said, struggling to keep his voice calm and at a bare whisper. A few of the men seated around him were chatting quietly, though most of them were focused on the child who was bound at the front of the room.

She moved ever so slightly, the chain that hooked her arms together sounding loud in the room as the links shifted against each other. She was six years old, maybe seven, and laying sprawled naked on her stomach in a room full of pedophiles. Dave barely repressed a shudder and fought harder to keep himself from running up and shielding her from the rest of the room. The only thing that was stopping him, cover be damned, was the men with very obvious weapons stationed both on the inside and the outside of the doors. Combined with the remote location and the labyrinth of corridors he'd been led through it was hardly a wonder that it had taken this long for them to pinpoint the location. There was no way that action on his part wouldn't wind up with him dead, and possibly the child as well if he actually got close to her.

The lights on the audience dimmed and men moved to the two cameras that were set up at either side of the room. A man in a mask, a man that Dave recognized from the pictures and video he'd seen of the child while they were working the case, walked to the front of the room and climbed onto the temporary stage. A burgundy terry cloth bathrobe was the only thing he was wearing other than the mask that obscured his face.

"It's show time. Now," Dave said with his lips barely moving. He wasn't sure that he could sit through this, be in the same room as this even if he couldn't bring himself to watch. The men around him were shifting, their breathing changing as the man on the stage shrugged out of his bathrobe and crawled up onto the platform so that he was hovering above the girl.

There was a space, a silence where Dave willed himself to turn off his senses and to shut out the room around him. It was dangerous, it was unwise, and it was downright cowardly not to at least watch and bear witness to the suffering of the child he wasn't doing a damn thing to save. But there were things he couldn't have in his mind. He couldn't watch this and still come back and do his job the next day. And he could live with being a coward, he couldn't live with not being a member of the team and not doing something to bring people like the ones surrounding him to justice.

The bubble around him broke as the sound of gunfire filled the hallway just before the doors flew inward with cries of "FBI! Police!" and a whole lot of noise about people staying where they were and keeping their hands where they could see them. Rossi ignored it all and dove forward with more speed than he thought he still possessed. He was wearing a bullet proof vest under his shirt, and they all knew there was a man of theirs on the inside, but none of that would help if someone got over-excited and took a head shot. Dave didn't care.

He ignored the naked man who had stumbled back from the platform and shielded the child instead, holding her and repeating that it was over, she was safe. It would never be over for her, they had pictures and video going back for over twenty four months and there was nothing they could do to change that.

"Daddy," the girl cried out. One of her bound hands reached toward the naked man as he was roughly taken into custody by Hotch and Morgan.

Bile rose into Dave's throat as he continued to hold her. It was the first sound he'd heard from her and he wasn't sure if there was any other word she could have said that would have made him feel like they'd failed more. "I've got you. You're safe," Dave said again, unwilling to process that information at the moment.

Prentiss appeared by his side a moment later with a blanket and Dave gratefully wrapped it around the girl. She was basically limp in his arms, had been the entire time he held her, and he wondered again about drugs. Prentiss was speaking quietly to the child, her voice in the same soothing tone that Dave had been using only moments earlier. He used the opportunity to look around, vaguely impressed that the locals had cleared the area so quickly.

"Dave, we're going to need someone to cut this lock unless we find the keys somewhere," Prentiss said softly to catch his attention.

Dave shifted the girl slightly in his arms and looked for the first time at her bindings. There was chain looped around her wrists and neck with long tails that connected them, chain that looked like it had been welded on because there wasn't a latch or a lock in sight. The chains themselves were padlocked through a hole in the platform. He didn't want to think about how long the girl had probably lived in these chains.

"Go get someone to cut the lock and find the paramedics," Dave said, his voice sounding distant to himself.

Prentiss disappeared and Dave sat, rocking the girl back and forth every so slightly while ever mindful of how much slack her restraints gave her. He would stay with her until she was free and safe; it was the least he could do since he couldn't watch.

*****

Dave didn't see the rest of the team again until JJ picked him up from the hospital and they drove straight to the small airport where the jet and a new case were waiting for them. It had only been about six hours since the raid; six hours not being nearly enough time for Dave to process everything.

One of the reasons he'd written the books about the serial killers he'd hunted, never intending on becoming somewhat of a celebrity in the process, was that it helped him to put everything down in a narrative. He could set out the facts, his observations, all the details and sense memories, and somehow that helped everything settle better in his mind. He hadn't written much to be published since he'd joined the team but he still wrote out some of the cases that stuck with him. If it was something that opened his eyes at two in the morning, it was probably something that he needed to write out. He wasn't actually sure he'd even be able to write about this case; some things didn't make anymore sense when he'd written them out than when they'd just been echoing around in his head.

It was unusual for them to go straight from one case to another, but a killing spree with a rapidly devolving unsub was in process only four hundred miles from their currently location. From the little JJ had said on the drive all the other teams were out and Strauss wasn't giving them an option. The rest of the team had wrapped up enough of the case, ran the basic interrogation of the specific unsub they'd been looking for, and the crimes against children unit and the local police department could take care of the rest. Dave tried to tell himself that he wasn't relieved to have an excuse not to sit by the child's bedside any longer.

They were the last to board the jet and they took off soon after. As soon as they were cleared to be able to move around the cabin, Dave disappeared into the bathroom and washed up as best he could. He changed his shirt, washed his face and hands, and held his head as high as he could when he looked in the mirror. When he was able to hold his hands steady, Dave went back out into the cabin and took his place at the table where JJ was setting up to brief them on the details of their next case. He thought that maybe they should wear capes as they flew from one city to the next; they weren't superheroes, couldn't save everyone or stop crimes before they happened, but maybe they were as close as it came.

Dave paid as much attention as he could manage, looking at photos that had been emailed to them and trying to see something other than blood and gore and murder. He tried to see something other than victims, something that would help catch the unsub before there were more bodies and blood.

They had an hour left in the air when they finished going over the notes and everyone retreated to think in private. When Dave looked up from the computer screen he found that Aaron was the only one left at the table and was watching him instead of working on one of the files spread out in front of him.

"Rawley, our unsub, confessed, pretty much immediately," Aaron said without preamble. "Gave up the names of people he'd been working with and his customer list. I think he was relieved to be caught."

Dave nodded, unable to help himself from bitterly wondering if the unsub had bargained for leniency with those names and lists. "Good."

"And he's not the child's father," Aaron continued.

"She was kidnapped?" Dave asked, knowing enough to not let himself hope that she had a family who was waiting for her.

"No. Her mother sold her to Rawley. Once Garcia knew the names involved it was a simple process to confirm the transaction, or so I'm told." Aaron looked away for a moment to erase the brief surge of emotion from his face.

Dave sighed and leaned back against the seat. He didn't want to close his eyes just yet even though he could feel exhaustion creeping up on him. On the surface it had been a perfect end to the case. They'd caught the unsub almost exactly on schedule, they'd taken down an entire pedophile ring with him and would undoubtably get more names from the others who were interviewed. They had found the child they'd been looking for. Nothing about the case felt perfect to Dave.

"What was her name?" Dave asked.

"Aubrey Lindell," Aaron said. He turned one of the files closed and opened the next one in the stack.

Dave nodded as he repeated the name to himself. He wouldn't forget; he wouldn't forget even if he could.


End file.
